Excellent posting on the China Media Blog that illustrates the double-speak employed by Chinese officials faced with complaints from frustrated journalists attending the Beijing Olympics.

It opens with an item from the Sydney Morning Herald telling how a Wall Street Journal journalist produced his laptop at a press conference to show that sites such as the BBC in China and Hong Kong's Apple Daily were being restricted.

The initial reply from the Beijing Organising Committee (known as BOCOG) media director, Sun Weijia? All websites and pages are available. The journalist is at fault.

But the WSJ man was supported by a large gathering of western journalists who made similar complaints. Sun's reply? "I will look into it and get back to you."

The blogger, Imagethief, notes that "this 'Who you going to believe? Us or your own eyes?' approach is also being applied to the air pollution, which has been exquisitely awful the last few days". The official response: "Our job is to decrease the pollution as much as possible, but sometimes it is very common to have fog in Beijing at this time. The air quality in August will be good."

Back to Imagethief: "Must be acid fog, since that would explain the stinging eyes."

Look out for more of this as the clash of media cultures becomes more pronounced once the games begin.